Comments:

Re: CAN-SPAM Act Rulemaking, Project No. R411008 I appreciate your efforts to curb the problem of unsolicited bulk email. I am an online merchant and publisher, and I despise spam. I receive over 400 spam per day, and it costs me a lot of time and money to deal with it. However, I am concerned about two issues: First, the possibity of bringing "forward to a friend" emails under the provisions of the Act. This would interfere with a very important type of commercial speech, the referral from a friend. By definition, these emails are shared between people who have a relationship, and are usually a one-time event. If the Act were applied, I would not be able to forward an interesting newsletter or article to a friend without possibly putting the author in violation. This is not the kind of mail the Act was intended to prevent. This information sharing is an integral part of the internet community and culture. Secondly, I am really concerned about the proposed requirement for merchants to maintain suppression lists. This would be an incredible cost and record keeping burden on legitimate businesses, while doing nothing to stop real spam. I must urge you to consider this matter most carefully. The Commission must consider that someone who unsubscribes from our newsletter, for example, has not necessarily chosen to never see our name in print again. Should we be required to see that this person never receives any other publication with an article, advertisement or affiliate recommendation concerning us from other publishers? Requirement of the use of suppression lists will seriously damage many of the legitimate publications available on the net. I believe that requiring opt-in or a transactional relationship for each publication and prompt unsubscribe from each publication is quite an adequate remedy. Certainly it would solve my own 400 spam a day problem. CAN-SPAM was designed to put those egregious spammers out of business, but this requirement would very likely have its most serious effect upon legitimate businesses which are trying to stay in compliance. There's also the potential for significant harm to consumers, because of the problem of properly knowing their intent when they unsubscribe from a list. They may simply feel that they were getting one newsletter too many, only to find out that they were now shut off from an encyclopedia of information because they ended up on a suppression list and were unsubscribed from other publications without their knowledge. I am quite concerned at the potential problems this ruling could involve, and urge you to reconsider its implementation in light of these problems, Respectfully, Lyle W Hopper Phoenix, AZ USA